1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a multi-interface conversion device, and in particular to a conversion device that is applicable in connection between electronic devices of different interface and for conversion and control of switching among different interfaces, including USB, IDE, SATA, and eSATA.
2. The Related Arts
Various interfaces, such as USB, IDE, SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment), and eSATA, are widely used in electronic equipments and devices, such as portable disk drives, hard disk drives, optic disk drives, notebook computers and desktop computers, and personal digital assistants, to serve as input/output interfaces of data and signals. These known interfaces, however, are not compatible with each other in practical applications, so that connection and conversion among theses interfaces are not available. Thus, all these interfaces must be connected to an intermediate medium, such as a computer, for conversion of data and interfacing for further input/output and storage of the data. Apparently, obstacles exist between electronic device equipped with different interfaces in doing data transfer and related applications.
Solutions to the above problems are available in the market. For example, conversion devices for conversion between USB and SATA or that between IDE and SATA are known. However, such conversion devices only work between two specific interfaces, and are not able to address the problem of data conversion or transfer among all the commonly used interfaces, including USB, IDE, SATA and eSATA, in which case, a computer is still needed to serve as an intermediate medium for data transfer or conversion among these commonly used interfaces.
Simple conversion between two specific interfaces, such as between USB and SATA and between IDE and SATA, is known from prior art references, such as Taiwan Utility Model Publication No. M272209. The technology disclosed in the reference, as discussed above, is not applicable to conversion or transfer of data between or among any arbitrary ones of the commonly used interfaces.
Further, Taiwan Utility Model Publication No. M290602 discloses connection and conversion between USB and eSATA, which similarly cannot solve the problem of connection and conversion among various interfaces.